In conventional wireless communication systems, a signal comprising information of interest may be modulated for transmission by utilizing a radio frequency (RF) carrier signal. The selection of the carrier signal may depend on the physical characteristics of the transmission medium, the spectral band allocated for transmission, and/or the specifications of the transmitter and receiver devices. At a front end of a radio receiver, the RF signal may be downconverted from the carrier signal before further processing may be performed on the information transmitted. In some receiver front ends, the RF signal may be down converted to a low intermediate frequency (IF) in the receiver or it may further down converted to zero IF or DC frequency, generally known as baseband. The contents of the original signal may be processed either in analog or digital format. In other receiver front ends, the RF signal may be downconverted directly to the baseband frequency.
Today, much of the development and design of radio receivers, transmitters, and transceivers has been driven by the great demand for devices for mobile wireless communication applications, especially handset devices. With the ever decreasing size of mobile handsets and an ever increasing demand for voice, data, and/or video processing capabilities, there is an growing need to develop radio receivers and transmitters that not only meet these challenging performance requirements, but that do so in smaller integrated circuit (IC) footprints, that is, at lower cost, and with greater power efficiency. One approach that aims at addressing these demands is the development of highly integrated radio transceivers in complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology to minimize the number of off-chip components.
However, the various components that may be utilized in highly integrated radio transceivers may come from different vendors and/or may have different interface requirements. For example, some highly integrated designs may utilize baseband processors capable of receiving and processing information which has been downconverted to basedband frequency at a receiver's front end. In this regard, the receiver front end may be easily integrated with such a baseband processor. In other instances, however, a baseband processor may have an interface that requires receiving signal which have been downconverted to a low IF at the receiver's front end. In this case a receiver front end that provides baseband frequency signals may not be easily integrated with the baseband processor. Addressing compatibility issues among various components of highly integrated transceivers is important in providing the cost and efficiency benefits that current mobile wireless communication applications demand.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.